Greetings one and all! First off, the important stuff
Second time with google video in front of 500 teachers...and...it...worked...phew!
:
Favorite veggie: brussel sprouts Most embarrassing song on my ipod: Walkin On Sunshine (with me singing) What's in my car trunk: pieces of my car that have fallen off, an old shirt that was that placed there as a new shirt, tool box, jumper cables, two camp chairs and a really big battery (hybrid) and remnants from a bale or two of hay. Wife: way more talented than me and definitely a better dancer Offspring: two creative, competitive, fully digitized middle schoolers Critters: two dogs, two rats, one cat, eight chickens and four turkeys (until November) Next cool social app we haven't heard of yet: nibipedia Five years from now: I will have read War and Peace Color, sepia or black and white: color
For me, the "magic, I get it" moment was complaining as a new teacher (unique for 1st year teachers) that my students (middle-schoolers) just needed a little more positive adult role modeling than just a handful of teachers could provide. Guru science teacher, Jim Bickel, says in his into-the-future-who-knows-if-it-would-even-work-way, "So Mike, why don't you start an email mentoring program." This is 1994...email? Huh? Three years later and with the help of some other great folks (collaboration, right?) 300 middle school Minneapolis Public School kids are emailing their mentors (one kid to one mentor) weekly at Cargill and it completely changes the students' engagement in their school work and our school efforts end up in an article and on the front cover of TIME.
As a science teacher, building-level tech coordinator, district tech project manager and now district tech coordinator, I still believe. I can hear the bell. I currently work as the District Tech Coordinator in Stillwater, MN and have been here just over four years. More stories from here will follow as the PLP program unfolds in the weeks ahead >>> going on an adventure...I'm all over that!
Greetings one and all! First off, the important stuff
Favorite veggie: brussel sprouts
Most embarrassing song on my ipod: Walkin On Sunshine (with me singing)
What's in my car trunk: pieces of my car that have fallen off, an old shirt that was that placed there as a new shirt, tool box, jumper cables, two camp chairs and a really big battery (hybrid) and remnants from a bale or two of hay.
Wife: way more talented than me and definitely a better dancer
Offspring: two creative, competitive, fully digitized middle schoolers
Critters: two dogs, two rats, one cat, eight chickens and four turkeys (until November)
Next cool social app we haven't heard of yet: nibipedia
Five years from now: I will have read War and Peace
Color, sepia or black and white: color
For me, the "magic, I get it" moment was complaining as a new teacher (unique for 1st year teachers) that my students (middle-schoolers) just needed a little more positive adult role modeling than just a handful of teachers could provide. Guru science teacher, Jim Bickel, says in his into-the-future-who-knows-if-it-would-even-work-way, "So Mike, why don't you start an email mentoring program." This is 1994...email? Huh? Three years later and with the help of some other great folks (collaboration, right?) 300 middle school Minneapolis Public School kids are emailing their mentors (one kid to one mentor) weekly at Cargill and it completely changes the students' engagement in their school work and our school efforts end up in an article and on the front cover of TIME.
As a science teacher, building-level tech coordinator, district tech project manager and now district tech coordinator, I still believe. I can hear the bell. I currently work as the District Tech Coordinator in Stillwater, MN and have been here just over four years. More stories from here will follow as the PLP program unfolds in the weeks ahead >>> going on an adventure...I'm all over that!
email: dronenm@stillwater.k12.mn.us
ichat: mikedronen (mac.com)
skype: mikedronen
ning: mikedronen
twitter: can you guess by now?